Linux Game Cast Weekly 437: Debian Ballsy

Linux gets ported to the N64! Gigabyte confirms 12Gb Nvidia 3080 and 3060 variants, Game Off 2020 results, and what’s going on with the latest Steam hardware & software survey? Then Streets of Rage 4 faces the ChairQAsition.


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Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
06:41 Steam Linux numbers tank
12:41 Steam beta client improves Vulkan shaders
17:21 9 Monkeys new game +
19:51 Draw & Guess
21:31 Watch over Christmas
23:06 Neon Wings: Air Race
27:11 Plugs & shameless self-promotion
30:56 12GB Nvidia 3060
37:01 Linux on the N64
39:31 Ryujinx in 2021
42:11 Game Off 2020 results
44:36 100 week of Veloren
48:11 DOSBox Pure
50:26 Review: Streets of Rage 4
01:02:34 Hate mail


Colour key: Venn Jordan Pedro

Steam: News

Hello China


Discard Beta

  • Shaders compiled with the old pipeline will be discarded to reduce the download size of the pre-compiled shaders.
  • Ah, that explains the single thread grinding because reason.
  • They also fixed accidentally starting big picture when you’re trying to turn a wireless controller off
    • For the 7th time

Steam: Game Updates

Monkey Game+

  • With the continuation of the requirement that people stay at home, New Game + is a very good thing to add to your game.
  • At least you get to keep your progress.
  • This game actually looks really cool abd I’m glad they’re adding more content.
  • I think it does a better job as a beat’em up than the one we’re throwing chairs at.

Steam: New Games

Draw & Guess

  • It has the thing.
  • By thing I mean online multi.
  • It’s no skribl.io but hey, more online pictionary isn’t necessarily a bad thing


Watch Over Christmas

  • Don’t play this with an IGPU apparently
    • Does it cause APUs to go up in flames?
  • Why you need dedicated horsepower for a point and click adventure is a bit beyond me
    • Looks more like a get out of igpu jail free warning.
  • Cisco is on a quest to replace Santas routers.


Neon Wings

  • It has a demo
  • They are investigating the possibility of online multiplayer, so I’m investigating the possibility of giving this a recommendation
    • On that note.
    • In 2021 online mulit is do or die.
    • Don’t think for one hot damn second SRP counts.
  • At this point it’s in the tech demo+ stage of development.
  • It launches and controls work but the gameplay is not there yet.
  • Movement is jerky and the flight is floaty.

News:

12GB ALL THE THINGS

  • More cards you can’t get in 2021!
  • This is going to confuse the hell out of people.
    • Should I get a 3070 8GB or 3060Ti 12?
  • Pedro be damned, IMA get a 3060Ti 12 GB for the studio box.
  • The 12GB is the 3060 (non-Ti), apparently.
    • Whatevs, I have a sharpie.
  • The TI has only 8GB.
  • Goddamnit NVidia.
  • Where does this nonsense fall in the $$$ bracket?
  • The 3060 8GB is $399 & the 3070 $499.
  • Will you sell me a 12GB 3060 for under $499?
  • Gaming, eagle and turbo? They’re ripping off our schtick. Or street fighter’s
  • The supply chain hasn’t quite yet recovered so I’m expecting that MSRP isn’t what you’re gonna be paying for these anyways
  • Still, it’s cool to see 12GB cards enter the “mid-range’


N64 Linux

  • Can’t quite squeeze it into 4mb of ram, so you ‘ll need the expansion pack. You can barely squeeze it into 8MB
    • People have hacked that cart rather hard.
    • Like 32MB of hard.
  • Wonder what delightful nonsense people will do with it.


Ryujinx in 2021

  • The yuzu alternative.
  • Setting up goals for 2021.
  • Reorganizing their Pat rewards.
  • I can see a lot more emulator projects getting in on the Patreon funding since it provides a good money stream they can count on to get stuff done.
  • Can’t really think of a Switch game I really want to play, maybe the pokeymans?
  • Trying to incentivise funding is something all open source projects are going to have to deal with at some point
  • This boils down to “pay more, get priority support”. Hey, if it works for red hat


Game Off 2020 results

  • First place was well deserved, that looks amazing!
  • It is a very literal interpretation of the theme but it does look very good and there’s a Linux build!
  • Lots of very moony games, given the theme
  • Congrats to NamraGaemDev


Veloren 100

  • We talked about this a few months back.
  • It’s a solid voxel RPG pixel pig murder sim.
  • They have been keeping up with the steady updates.
  • Quite a bit of work went into glider physics.
  • Wgpu transition.
  • Yup, you can still zoom the camera out to see the whole game map.
  • Voxel BOTW development chugs on
  • Lots of modeling work has been done
  • They also updated combat and explained a bit about how enemies with multiple moves might work


DOSBox Pure

  • Proper DOS core for libretro
  • This will enable a lot more games to be played on your RetroArch/Lakka/Retropie builds.
  • It has some improvements over vanilla dosbox for ease of use, mostly to make it more readily integrate into retroarch.

CHAIRQUISITION:
– Nooope

– Not sure if want

– Check it out

– Shutupandtakemymonies


Game: Streets of Rage 4
Devel: Dotemu, Guard Crush, Lizardcube
Engine: FNA
Price: £22.49 / $24.99 / $28.99

Wazzat: Amongst the best beat’em up series ever created, jammin’ ‘90s beats and over the top street fighting, the iconic series Streets of Rage comes back with a masterful tribute to and revitalization of the classic action fans adore.



Venn:

Launch/Looks/Sounds/Control

  • Launches right out of the box, no issues.
  • OpenGL is hella stable but I had one spite-crash using Vulkan.
  • Controller was picked up.
  • Launches in a itsy little window.
  • Online multi was stable.

Fun?

  • It took about 6 hours to Venn my way through the game in multiplayer.
  • $4.16 per hour of entertainment, not bad.
  • If you’re like me that might be a little on the low side since I rarely play games again after I beat them.
  • What is it?
  • Mindless beat em up with optional skill requirements needed to rank higher than C.
  • Punch, jump kick, and special your way through a dozen or so levels.
  • Unlock some regular and hipster characters.
  • Fight the occasional boss.
  • Curse loudly every time the knife guy jacks you up.
  • I was not a fan of the art style at first but it grew on me.
  • The retro inspired music boops along in the background ranging from not bad to little bit of alright.
  • All in all it’s faithful to the original and does a good job capturing the fun parts.
  • But keep in mind, it’s a short game for the price unless you are going for a high score.


Jordan:

Launch/Looks/Sounds/Control

  • FNA baby. Shit just works out of the box
  • Your resolutions are fullscreen or whatever you can drag the window to be
  • I dig the soundtrack. Swingy, jazzy and reminds me of the character select screens on old capcom arcade games
  • The controls themselves are…well, they replicate what was there originally pretty accurately. For better or for worse

Fun?

  • Honestly, I think if I had played this all by my lonesome it would have easily gotten one or two chairs
  • I’m not the biggest fan of this era of beat’em ups.
  • You don’t get much in the way of fancy tech. You can do a basic combo which can cancel into your heavy attack which eats up some health you can regain if you’re quick enough
  • If you get star pieces, you get super attacks, but you probably wanna save those for the bosses
  • If you want to get gud ™ you’ll need to work at finishing each level with as much health and money as you can to get those A and S ranks if you want to fill up the two other magic score-bulb thingies
  • What mysteries await beyond them? No clue, I’m not motivated enough to find out
  • I think for folks who want some pretty new graphics on an old favourite, this game will do you good.
  • If you want something with a bit more modern design to it, maybe check out something else

Pedro:

Launch/Looks/Sounds/Control

  • Out of the box
  • VSync is a bag of lies, it just locks the FerPS to 60.
  • I now remember why I got annoyed while playing these games
  • The constant ah-yah!’s start to grate in my eardrums after a bit.
  • DualSense worked out of the box, no Steam Input required.
  • You can select which button labels you want in game, that’s nice.

Fun?

  • There’s no way to kill the “voice acting” without also killing the rest of the sound effects.
  • That’s a pretty big minus, from me.
  • But if I focus on the visuals and let the audio meld into the background noise, it’s actually a pretty fun game.
  • It’s hard, especially playing alone.
  • From what I could tell, you get the same amount of regular enemies in most of the level and it isn’t until the bosses and mini-bosses that the difficulty seems to scale up with multiplayer.
  • On level 7 or 6 when they introduce the muay thai and karate fighters it took me a few continues to actually get through it.
  • It is a very fun brawler and it’s Linux native, which you don’t see a lot of nowadays.
  • But I’d very much like to have an option to tell the characters to stfu.

Verdict:

Venn:
Jordan:
Pedro:


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